I’ve been playing GD on and off now for ages. I describe myself as a casual player because I know I’m not one to really min/max my characters or grind for specific items.
My question is, how long does it take some of you more experienced players to grind a character up to max level?
The reason I ask is that, I’ve started and deleted probably half a dozen characters already before actually finishing it on normal. For various reasons, I always end up dropping away from the game for too long to pick up an established character again. I always feel it’s easier to just begin from scratch than try and relearn the skills to play that character build.
But the trade off of that is that, even though I’ve put in a reasonable amount of time in the game, I’ve never pushed past normal. Just seems to take ages. Wondering how long it takes you guys.
I don’t know if I am the kind of experienced player you are asking but as a casual player I can get through normal in six and a half hours with the right set up. Takes me longer to get through elite and ultimate because I tend to need to grind up rep so I can get my resistances where they need to be.
If you keep beginning from scratch you will never experience having a build really come together and getting really incredible gear (not even necessarily legendaries or hard to get gear) or getting to a point where you have all your devotion points and your build really starts rolling through content. I also enjoy farming to be honest.
There’s no grinding involved. If you play through Normal and Elite, and do all/most of the optional quests, you can reach max level (85) by Act 2 or Act 3 in Ultimate.
This is probably the least XP grindy ARPG I have played. Leveling is quick until about 65~70 when it noticeably slows down.
The only thing that I find needs grinding are hostile Factions’ Reputation.
Friendly Factions get to Revered by Ultimate just by doing the quests without grinding. Maybe a little Rep farming for Kymon’s Chosen/Order of Death’s Vigil/Black Legion.
I found that normal took about 6-8 hours my first time through and the subsequent difficulties took a bit less, resulting in about 16 hours total for my first full playthrough of all three difficulties.
I also find this really hard to do. Ive leveled many characters to about 30 and then i just didn’t like the way i put in the points or something. Especially in the second mastery so its back to the drawing board. Finally i have a handful that I pleased with, they are fun to play and it feels like nothing has been wasted, cept some time maybe. And the gear makes me start over allot. Having a part of a set is just unacceptable(they should all drop together, in a box, with a blue bow.). I grinded the early part over and over once and it seemed after a while the rate just tanked. Could be my imagination, i am not sure how level affects epic drop rate on Heroes and Bosses. And it seems these days the bosses hardly drop anything, lots of magics and iron but not a lot of exciting gear. Just bad luck maybe. I can kill 20 heroes and nothing and then an epic pops out of a corpse.
That first stretch is super long. Takes me several hours to go from the start to the warden. I try to just hit the major stuff but I always end up cleaning the map. I’m sure some nice low level rares would help, but I can’t help but collect the uniquies. Its usually a grind from scratch with whatever i find. Very slow. A trophy room would be nice, some way to separate the uniques from the stash for the hoarders and collectors and stash space could be more functional. Playing Epic Dress Up Doll House is one of my favorite things to do, hard to let them go.
Yeah, 30 hours to finish all content including sealed dungeons in normal is about accurate for your very first playthrough. Like bastion of chaos first time I played it I absolutely crept through and was kiting individual enemies away and killing them
I look at how I started and how I play now when I pass through those sealed dungeons and it is a hilarious contrast. It doesn’t really matter how long you take to get through your first playthrough as long as you are still enjoying yourself.
Not always new players taking their time either. I’ve been playing since the alpha came out and it still takes me hours to get through normal, not that I’m complaining. I explore everywhere looking for loot spots, etc. I started a new Conjurer yesterday, played for 3 hours in the morning, another hour just after lunch and then about another hour in the afternoon and got as far as the Burrwitch Outskirts riftgate. So 5 hours to get that far. I could have played for around another hour, but was pretty sure I’d never clear all the content between the Outskirts and Burrwitch Village riftgate so will tackle that another day.
I also spend most of my time in Normal. I’ve only gotten 2 toons into Elite and both are quite old toons: a Demolitionist and a Conjurer but don’t really play them much because of their age. I’ve restarted both builds again in hopes of pushing through to the end of Ultimate this time.
I found there is not much point trying to farm normal and for the most part not much point trying to find loot spots either. Normal and elite I move through as fast as I can because I know I am constantly going to be changing gear and nothing from those difficulties will be used in my final build. I also don’t spend a long time collecting or looking at yellows. Some people I’ve played with would spend ten minutes in their inventory just looking at stuff they picked up. I still give the yellows a cursory glance for stats I might want for leveling but I’d rather play the game than be constantly in my inventory or constantly porting back to town to sell pieces for a few iron bits. Also most of your XP gain is from quests and not from killing monsters or really heroic mobs.
Yeah I have spent some time tooling around the blacksmith as well - just because it’s really unintuitive. Like, there’s one relic I wanted to make, but in order to do it I needed to craft the raw mats first. Lot and behold, one of those mats is a recipe from Kymon’s Chosen. I was looking this up at level 20 or something. Only by going online did I realise that a) I can’t make the stuff and b) making stuff with the blacksmith is kinda redundant on normal.
That would be my only complaint about the game really. I get so many drops for components that I feel like I will never use, and when i try look through the blacksmith menu, it’s hard to navigate to see exactly what I can make.
Like, I might be able to make a decent relic or component, but i will need to craft the raw mats first, and I need to back track it from the original requirements first. Not seriously onerous but way harder than it needs to be IMO.
